Let’s continue with the Blue Seed anniversary retrospective.
Blue Seed 2 is a three episode OVA that serves as a direct sequel to the first show. It was originally given a more typical treatment for this kind of direct to video product, but it was then released in the American market as a 100 minute movie titled Blue Seed Beyond by ADV films.
Two years after the end of the original series the Aragami have returned. This time, the creatures try to destroy San Francisco and the old team is called back into action in order to stop them. What they don't know is that these Aragami have been created in a lab. Momiji's relationship with Kusanagi is a bit rocky but it only gets worse when another half-Aragami girl, Valencia, arrives. Will this Valencia girl be a threat to Momiji? Who is behind these new Aragami attacks? Watch to find out.
This one is often considered to be an underwhelming sequel. Several of its aspects are criticized, like the inconsistent characterizations, the downgraded look and the disappointing storyline. I do agree that these are major flaws but I still think it's somewhat fun and memorable on its own. Not a perfect sequel but one that can scratch the itch of more Blue Seed content.
The redesigns don't really convince me overall, they aren't as memorable and they seem very jarring when comparing them to the ones we got used to in the original series. They have a plastic and slick and clean look, far from the oddly beautiful yet simple and rough designs from the original show. The animation is another aspect that isn't as impressive this time around. I might be wrong, but the animation feels less polished and elaborate than the one seen in the TV series, which kind of goes to show how talented the animators working on Blue Seed were. That's not to say that Beyond looks awful but visually it leaves a lot to be desired and is also hurt by being a sequel to a great work. It has the makings of a generic anime at its worst moments, which isn't that bad anyway. Far from inept but not top notch material.
The character writing is not as consistent either, some characters look and sound like they did in the first series but the story itself never allows them to show off their personality like before. I think a lot of characters retain some traits but lose their more natural core characteristics that dictate their reaction to certain events. For example, Koume is just fine on paper, being a tough character and all, but her dialogue and responses to certain scenarios feels lacking and too soft compared to her previous appearances in the manga and the anime. It's still coherent with it's superficial aspects but the writing itself isnt really character driven, I think that's what's missing here, leaving them mostly as shells of what they used to be.
There's also little time for psychological exploration as the show needs to be faster and more oriented towards action scenes. Because of this, some of the characters come off as interchangeable at times, something that never happened in the original show. These issues don't make it horrible but you end up missing some of the nuance given to the story and its characters.
Oddly enough, Episode 3 is actually my favorite. It's a secluded bottle episode that takes place in some hot springs and involves a terrorist planting a bomb in the place. It's a bit tense, it's captivating because of the premise, it's not as sleazy as it could have been and we got some more characterization as well. I will say that it's more reminiscent of an episode of Burn Up, Dirty Pair or You Are Under Arrest! than Blue Seed, but a decent one at that.
The only problem is that it has nothing to do with the storyline of the first two episodes, making the show feel very disjointed. It's also strange seeing a Blue Seed episode that has nothing to do with the Aragami monsters. Perhaps the creators planned to expand the show’s potential and go for a full refreshing new series and touch upon more concepts but only got to do three random episodes instead. I can only imagine watching it thinking of it as a movie, that makes it even more messy.
Trapped between not having the time of a full TV show in order to delve deeper into its characters and not being concise enough to be a solidly plotted and tight feature film or mini-series. It's in the midpoint, not amounting to much. This is all surprising because a lot of the same crew that worked on the original series worked on Beyond as well.
Honestly, it's enjoyable, even the emotional moments worked on me, as crude and sudden as they are, simply because of how honestly they were delivered. I can only see hardcore fans of the first series liking it. It's faulty (mostly because of the short runtime) but slightly fun if you know what you are getting into. I still think that given the proper time to develop and more episodes to play around with, Blue Seed Beyond could have been a good continuation series and maybe even successfully extended the series into other genres and territories.
Because of its popularity, we can find other Blue Seed animated media out there, like Blue Seed 1.5, which retells the story of the show in a condensed manner and with two different points of view. There's also Blue Seed Omake, which are short subjects that were added to the video releases of the original series. They are funny and quick but not relevant. Next week we will talk about the manga everything spawned from.
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